Often, individuals would like to have access to records and documents that are kept at sometimes-distant data repositories. In some circumstances, such records and documents are desired as soon as available. In others, the records or documents are desired on a regular, scheduled basis to provide updates, for example. Attorneys, for example, frequently obtain various records and associated documents from courts and study them for one reason or another. For instance, the attorney may wish to monitor the progress of an important case or they may want to obtain legal briefs that were filed in a case involving similar legal issues the attorney is currently confronted with.
The records and documents that attorneys may wish to see are often collected and/or produced by courts on a daily basis. As a court case progresses through its life cycle, important dates, corresponding events and associated documents are recorded and stored. It is important that these items are recorded and stored so that court officials, attorneys and members of the public can access them to review or learn about a case. However, at any given time a court may have hundreds, if not thousands of cases pending before it. Indeed, manually keeping track of all the dates and events let alone other information related to each of the cases is unfathomable.
As a result, many Federal and State courts, and some local courts, for example, employ computer docketing systems to handle such record keeping. In a court environment, for example, court clerks enter important dates, events and other information for each case in the court's computer docketing system. Moreover, each court case has associated therewith a docket sheet including all of the information entered into the system for the case, which is typically stored in a court database. It should be noted that court case docket sheets and the particular documents identified therein are generally available to the public, though not always. In addition, some courts having computer docketing systems offer access into their court database for retrieving court case records, such as court case docket sheets, using a modem dial-up connection, for example.
Heretofore it has been difficult for individuals to conveniently access court case records and retrieve the items or documents associated therewith. Individuals have been able to access some electronic court case records. For example, the PACER™ records retrieval service allows individuals to access Federal Court electronic court case records. However, once the electronic court case records are accessed, a cumbersome process ensues for actually retrieving the items or documents identified in the court case records. In particular, a document retrieval service is contacted to identify, purchase and request delivery of the items or documents identified in the court case records.
For example, attorneys, paralegals, law clerks or law librarians who have had to access Federal Court records and retrieve documents in the nature of a specific docket sheet and corresponding items enumerated therein (e.g., complaints, pleadings or memoranda of law), are well aware of the series of inefficient, time-consuming steps involved in accomplishing the task. Many legal researchers are familiar with the process of logging-on to the PACER™ Federal Court records access service, conducting a court docket sheet search for a particular case they are interested in, printing the relevant docket sheet once found, and then communicating the information to the requester. The requester will then pour over the docket sheet to determine which of the identified court items or documents (e.g., pleadings, scheduling orders, etc.) are needed.
The next step in this process often involves contacting a local or regional document retrieval service to request the full-text version of the specific court case items or documents available through their service. In order to ensure accuracy regarding the request, an additional step in the process involves faxing the document retrieval service the docket sheet clearly indicating the required items. As a follow-up, a telephone call is sometimes placed to the document retrieval service to confirm that they have indeed received the request, or sometimes to provide them with additional instructions.
Perhaps one of several reasons it has been difficult to provide individuals with the ability to conveniently access electronic court case records is that court databases are not always accessible through the same communication medium. For example, some court databases may be accessible only through dial-up connections while others, alternatively or in addition, may be accessible through the Internet. Moreover, retrieving items or documents associated with electronic court case records can be even more difficult. Electronic court case records may not always include markers that identify the location of the court items or documents within the records. Making matters worse, electronic court case records accessed from different court databases are not always stored in the same format. Moreover, since human beings input the electronic court case records, data inconsistencies are common even within a single electronic court case record. Thus, such indiscriminate court items or documents contained in the electronic court case records can be difficult to identify.